This week’s FF case is Aleca Renee Manning. She was a 22-year-old of Native American descent who disappeared from Phoenix on February 17, 1975. Aleca (whose nickname was Lisa) got separated from her friends while they were at a concert and vanished into thin air, never to be seen again. I don’t have much on this case unfortunately.
I did a search in Newspapers.com (I have a subscription now) and found her mentioned in a 1980 Arizona Republic article, but it wasn’t about her disappearance. It just said that Westwood High School was trying to find graduates for their 10th reunion, Aleca among them.
The Charley Project Blog 
This is yet another case I find puzzling and intriguing. When there is so little information about a MP and the years have flown by, it can be very hard to ever solve certain cases.
The most likely scenario in this case is that Aleca was abducted from the concert and killed at another location. Some abductors (especially in 1975 where there were no cameras or alerts or cell phones like today) had no problem with taking their victims and going undetected by people around them. I’m thinking that when she got separated from her friends, somebody might have seen that as a chance to take her. It reminds me of what happened to Morgan Harrington, except Morgan’s remains were actually found and her case is much more recent.
The person who took her (if that is indeed what happened) might not have been a stranger either, but somebody she knew and trusted. The “buddy system” is VERY important when going out with a group…especially to places where there is a possibility of getting lost or separated from one another.
My personal rules are: 1) we all stick together no matter what; 2) be careful of accepting drinks or rides from anyone outside of the group; 3) agree to meet at a certain spot if we are somehow separated.
I wonder how long it was before Aleca’s friends realized that something wasn’t right, that she was nowhere to be found.
I agree on the importance of the buddy system. I went with a group of five or six friends to an off-campus college party once, while I was attending Hendrix College in Arkansas. I was nineteen at the time. We had a designated driver who stayed sober while the rest of us drank ourselves silly. I got extremely drunk. I had whiskey and Coke and whenever the glass started getting empty I’d add a little bit more of both, so I had no idea how much I’d had, but it was enough that everything around me was spinning. I’ve never been able to handle my liquor very well.
Long story short, I wound up in a toolshed with a complete stranger, a boy from another school, who wouldn’t take no for an answer. Fortunately I was able to get away from him. His girlfrlend called him at the literal last minute and he let me out of the shed so he could talk to her, and I stumbled away. I was extremely upset. I found my designated driver and he took me back to my dorm, then he returned to the party and he and our friends cornered that guy and told him to GTFO and never come back to any of our college parties or he would regret it. Later that year, when I was at another off-campus alcohol-fest, another friend of mine (who’d also been at the aforementioned party) told everyone, “This is my cousin and she has a boyfriend and is NOT interested in hooking up with anyone. And I’m looking out for her, so if you think she needs help, tell me.”
Lisa’s mother, Norma Manning, is my grand aunt. Norma never stopped looking for Lisa and never stop thinking about her. Every single time that I saw my aunt, she would cry about Lisa.
Norma assumes that a serial killer got a hold of her but I don’t know who she suspected. I’m sure at this point we will never know what happened to Lisa; but, I don’t think that she’s alive because she would have contacted her mother.
I have been watching a show about cold cases and I though about Lisa. Thank you everyone for remembering her. If Norma was still alive, should would be very touched that people actually care 40 years later.
She disappeared about a month-and-a-half after I was born… Such a long time ago… 43 years in February